[TowerTalk] Have we been wasting our money?

[Roger (K8RI)]

On 6/23/2010 12:50 AM, Kevin Normoyle wrote:
> "It seems pretty obvious he was poking fun at an antenna that in all
> reality is essentially a coil-loaded  baseball bat."
>
> The antenna is a copycat of the predator 10k
> The predator 10k, is approx 79 3/4" long when installed.
>
> I think people don't understand the shaft gets a stinger.
>    
And it's still a base loaded quarter wave which isn't the most efficient 
antenna you'll find although it is a good mobile antenna.
Remember too we are talking about an e-bay add which had a number of 
open ended, wild claims.
> http://www.cbradiomagazine.com/Feb%202007/CB%20Radio%20Antennas%20-%20Which%20one%20is%20right%20for%20you.htm
>
>    
The author basically admitted that this is not a scientific comparison 
which means it's pretty much anecdotal which is fine.
> I think we should make fun of antennas that don't work.
>
> The technical question is, I suppose, does this antenna work? If it
> doesn't work, then yeah, let's make fun of it.
>
>    
and that goes for most mobile antennas. I was comparing the e-bay add 
claims against the large antennas we use for chasing DX and joking that 
we must be wasting money if that antenna worked as well as he said in 
the add.
> I found myself nodding my head when I read the  review above (it's not
> really technical, but a little), and found this story. If the story is
> true, and one can imagine it is, who comes off looking worse here?
>    
He also said that the guy he ran into couldn't have been a ham so I 
don't see the point.
Who comes off worse is the guy who was claiming to have an extra class 
license.

Time to put this thing to rest.

73

Roger (K8RI)